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ed getting together to do a few duo things. At that point Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick had just broken-up, because Swarb had joined Fairport Convention, so I thought ‘hang on a minute, there’s a gap in the folk scene. We could do pretty well here and actually make a living without having to work!’”

“H “In 1970, our first album, The Rout Of The Blues, was Melody

Maker’s folk album of the year and just after that we were round at Bill Leader’s house one day, and he had a phone call from Ashley Hutchings who was putting a band together and wanted to talk to Barry and me about it. We went round to his flat and I remember thinking ‘I don’t know whether I can get on with this.’ Barry was the same, and we were doing so well as a duo. Terry and Gay Woods were there, and me and Baz and Tyger, and it was all a bit tense – five people who didn’t really know each other. So we gave Steeleye a miss and made the second album, Lord Of All I Behold. Then it start- ed to unwind, a bit…”

What happened?

“In autumn 1971 we were being managed by Jo Lustig and on tour with Ralph McTell. We were cutting it quite big at the time, and then my brother wanted out. I didn’t, he did. This is the real truth of the story. There’s lots of theories about ‘those awkward Dransfield brothers,’ or whatever, but Barry just wanted out. He never was easy with being on the road, and he’d just had enough.”

“I tried to talk him round, and Ralph did too, but he just dropped it. Jo went crazy because at the time there was a compilation of the first two albums about to come out on Warners in the States, which we’d remastered at Abbey Road. In terms of the music business, our name was just dirt. I thought Jo was terrific, though. I haven’t got a bad word to say about Jo really, except I didn’t like his dog – it used to sit and slobber on you when you went round his office!”

“At that point I didn’t really know what to do with myself and was very upset about the split with Barry. I would have loved to have gone to America with him, and that’s the only thing that still bugs me about it now – that we never got to tour over there or see Jackson Browne at the LA Troubadour!”

fter a few weeks, I ended up at Dave and Toni Arthur’s place in south London, and I roadied for them for six months and lived at their house, and it was great. And then, one day, in late summer ’72 I woke up and thought ‘I fancy doing some gigs again.’ Martin Carthy was just moving out of a bedsit room in Archway and I took that over. Trevor Crozier and his missus, Annie, were living in the downstairs flat, and Tim Hart was living upstairs, and there was a photographer on the top floor. It was a very inter- esting period. So I did some solo work, then Barry came back into it a bit, and then we did the Dransfield band. The Fiddler’s Dream, which was mainly written by Barry, is a cult album now, but we were too late for the rock scene – with punk happening – but far too loud for the Tom Paxton audience we ended up playing to on tour. At the end of that we just packed it in and me and Barry went back to doing some duo stuff again, as well as both working solo, right up to the early ’80s”

“A

“The last duo album was Popular To Contrary Belief in 1977. The title was a piss-take – John Tams came up with that! Neil Wayne talked us into making it. We weren’t doing much, so we said we would if we could record it with Nic Kinsey, who did a wonderful job on it. Nic was the only genius I ever worked with and a great loss – he died far too young. My solo album Tidewave was started in 1973 at a time when I was going to France a lot. I’d get a cheap, last-minute flight to Paris for about a fiver and go and record in the middle of the night for free, thanks to my friends in Malicorne who I’ve been a big fan of right from the beginning. When Malicorne did their first ever tour in France, I did the support. That was a really interesting time and great fun!”

“It took until 1981 to come out, for various spurious reasons, and by then I wasn’t really going anywhere as a performer. By the time it got to the mid ’80s, my life had changed and I thought ‘I don’t really see much future for me in it, I think I’ll go in a different

aving baled out of the Crimple Mountain Boys, I headed to Worcester to train as a teacher. I bought a guitar and played floor spots round all the folk clubs. Around the same time Barry was learning the fiddle and him and me start-